Pages tagged "data privacy"

Forty-three states, including Illinois, have closed K-12 schools for the remainder of the year. Mass closures and a sudden switch to crisis schooling from a distance have prompted reflections on the crucial role of schools for children and communities. It’s also prompted speculation about what changes might take place longer term as a result of the closings and the pandemic.

“The unprecedented shutdown of public and private schools in dozens of states last week has illuminated one easily forgotten truism about schools: They are an absolute necessity for the functioning of civic culture, and even more fundamentally than that, daily life.

Schools are the centers of communities. They provide indispensible student-welfare services, like free meals, health care, and even dentistry. They care for children while parents work. And all those services do much to check the effects of America’s economically stratified systems of employment and health care on young students.” --When Schools Shut Down, We All LoseEducation Week March 20, 2020.

Ahead of next week’s administration of the PSAT exam in schools around the state, nine Illinois state legislators are asking Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul to investigate the business practices of a major state vendor, the College Board, the standardized test maker that sells the SAT, PSAT and Advanced Placement exams.

On Wednesday September 25th, Chicago Public Schools Chief Information Officer Phil DiBartolo confirmed that Illinois' largest school district, Chicago Public Schools, was also part of the Pearson AIMSweb data breach that Pearson first announced in July.

Governor Pritzker signed a slew of bills into law this past Friday—including two of our very own initiatives, student data privacy and class size goals, and three more important laws that we’ve been working on with coalitions!

These bills' passage are the outcome of years of hard work and would not have been possible without the collective action of parents and public school supporters across Illinois!